Hate Is a Really Strong Word
by StrictlySomething
Summary: Tony Stark had more than a few skeletons in his rather expensive closet, something not the least bit surprising coming from a billionaire superhero playboy of his caliber. And although he was growing pretty fond of the mismatched team of Avengers, there were still some things he preferred to keep to himself. Like the reason why he couldn't stand that Junior Senator from Oregon.
1. Chapter 1

**Warnings: Language, and lots of it, from the mouth of Tony Stark. Also uncomfortable, fairly explicit subject material in later chapters. This isn't a story for nice fuzzy warm feels.**

**Chapter One**

It wasn't his best night ever, Tony mused inwardly. In fact, there were a number of reasons that made this one of the most horrifying nights of his life.

He would take comfort in the fact that they were back at the Tower, except that he had part of the problem, an angry Captain America, tailing ten steps behind him, as he had been ever since they'd stepped foot onto the Italian hardwood flooring. The heavy clomping of army boots followed steadily behind him, making it very hard to remember the reasons why Tony had thought it was a good idea to make Stark Tower Avenger's Tower in the first place.

His eye twitched, repeatedly, the facial spasms only soothing when he caught sight of his liquor bar. Thank God.

He bee lined for to it without an ounce of shame. The clomping of boots stopped somewhere off to his left, because Steve always felt the best way of showing his disapproval, or maybe it was a wariness, of Tony's poor drinking habits was by staying as far away from the rather large liquor bar as possible.

"Tony, he could _die_!" Steve's voice had finally rose that extra not to a whole new octave, officially making this a full-fledged screaming match. Which brought Tony back to one of this reasons why this night was so god-awful to begin with. He did not _do_ screaming matches. Especially with Captain America.

"Well maybe he should, Steve!" Tony yelled back, shoving ice into his glass and pouring a liberal amount of scotch into it from the nearest bottle. He was never the one to make the mature decisions in these kinds of battles.

"C'mon Tony, cut the crap. This is a man's life we're talking about. A senator could _die_. How can you be so damn detached?" And now the Cap had sunk to swearing. What was_ happening_ to the world? How was _this_ his life? And when had it even come to this?

Oh, that's right, when they caught on to some of the SHIELD intel that fucking Senator Robert Broughton had been kidnapped and shipped off to the AIM hideout whose location they'd just happened to uncover on their last mission. He should never have taken a crack at those AIM computers, should've just let those nerds sit in their hidden fortress for a while more, Tony thought wearily, feeling the migraine growing.

"It's a life that both Black Widow and Hawkeye have no problem with leaving to die, why should we?" He threw out, his drink sloshing in its glass as his arms followed his word's path violently.

Steve rolled his eyes, "That's different. Natasha and Clint are –"

Tony cocked a brow, "What, assassins? Killers? Unable to cherish human life for being human life?" He scoffed, swallowing the glassful of scotch in his hand whole, and savoring the burn. "You forget who you're talking to, Rogers. _Merchant of Death, _here. I've killed hundreds more than them in a week." Shit, and now he was back to last names. The ground being lost here, in these split seconds, wasn't even funny.

He gulped down the rest of his drink at the thought. It burned down his throat nicely, giving him some of that liquid courage that his inherently word-vomiting mouth definitely didn't need.

"Besides, Natasha said the bills he keeps throwing forward to his super-committee served as a huge threat to world stability, or something like that. I'm fuzzy on the key points, but what I'm saying is, it sounded like Armageddon-esque material to me. And hey, she's the super spy with the super-spy-intelligence so who am I to question?" He said with a shrug of his shoulders as if to say _what can you do?_, before turning away to find more liquor.

He was done with this conversation, done with this fucking hellhole of a day. Maybe if he drank enough, this would all go away. An ironclad hand suddenly clamped down on his arm, reminding him that Steve never stopped pushing a point no matter how hard Tony blew him off. He turned to glare at the suit-clad limb furiously, because anything that got between him and liquor deserved the patented Glare of Death.

"Natasha and Clint had their humanity stripped down to nothing but a weapon and a target, trained to kill since childhood. Of course they view life differently," Steve said stiffly. "You've pointed it out yourself on occasion. And just because a man has a dangerous political platform doesn't' mean he should be killed by the likes of AIM."

Point to Steve. That _was _a sorry reason. If he could guess, Natasha and Clint, or more specifically SHIELD itself, had a little more information about what was really happening than they were willing to release to the public. Something that actually _was_ world-threatening perhaps. Or maybe they just really hated it when their funding got cut. Either way, Tony didn't give a fuck.

"Would you let go of my _fucking_ arm?" He bit out. Honestly, he did not like to be touched in a fucking confrontation. It freaked him out. And Steve should fucking know that by now. Great, and now his verbal repertoire was made up of fucking profanities. There was no fucking restart button once he got to this point, all you could do was bunker down and wait for the fucking storm to pass.

"Not until you take this damn conversation seriously," Steve said adamantly, eyes flashing like some sort of hell fire out of the Old Testament. Of course it was his luck that Steve was such a righteous bastard_. _Anyone else would've dropped this after the first raging half hour the flight back had turned into. Only Steve, with his driving urge to program everyone into his quaint idea of some universal morality, would push this so fucking hard.

"Fuck off," Tony rebutted angrily, slamming his glass down on the counter. He could fill it up one handed, no problem. Grabbing the next nearest bottle determinedly, he aimed it over the glass only to have Steve rip it from his grasp with his free hand.

"God _damn _it, Rogers. Get the fuck out of my face!" Tony yelled.

"What the hell is _wrong _with you!?" Steve dug relentlessly, his eyes unmercifully exploring Tony's face.

"What's wrong with _you_?" Tony threw back at him. "Our big world-saving mission finished over an hour ago, I'd say we did enough for the day! Besides, this guy's been missing for two days now? Not feeling the likelihood of success here. So drop it!"

And where the hell was everybody else? Usually Bruce, or Natasha managed to stop them before it ever got this far, because everyone knew sticking Tony and Steve in a room together with a disagreement was like screaming Fire! at a plasmid rhododendron set down on them by an angry warlock. It should NEVER be done, a lesson that had been learned, keenly.

It was probably best to avoid the blast radius of whatever explosion went off next, and being the smart people Tony's teammates were, they were already very, very far away from here. Except for Clint, who Tony'd bet was watching it with popcorn in the ventilation shaft again. Tony didn't know why everyone thought the mixture of curiosity, bravery, but sometimes outright stupidity that made up the archer was enough for the man to be given the rights of an adult, let alone a superspy hero. He lacked some serious survival instincts.

"Is that what this is?" Steve latched on to Tony's flippant excuses, narrowing his eyes, "You think we're too late? Might as well not even try?"

A nearly hysterical laugh crept from Tony's throat, "Not even a _little!"_ He managed to snatch the scotch back from Steve's hand—which meant Steve _let _him have it, which meant maybe he was winning?—and poured himself a shaky glass. His mouth kept going despite his brain's desperate screaming, "Jesus, Rogers. I wouldn't help the fucking bastard if I was five feet away from him! He deserves _everything_ he gets."

Tony realized in the little corner of his brain that was still fucking reasonable as he caught a straight look at the soldier's face that, nope. Whatever this was, it definitely wasn't winning.

Steve dropped his arm, his face still a stone mask, "You don't mean that."

Tony scoffed, throwing his head back as he shot back another glass, all the while walking backwards to behind the bar to put distance between them.

"You want to go out there and save his worthless hide, be my guest. I'm sure you can even talk whatever resident superspy you find into helping, maybe if you give up TV rights for the next week, your firstborn son, whatever. The clock's ticking, and it's not in his favor," Tony allowed the concession roughly, liquor still leaving burning lines down his throat and into his churning stomach. He turned his back on the soldier to reach for a bottle that was on one of the higher shelves. He was aiming for smashed tonight, and this stuff would do it. "But there is no way in hell I am about to waste my breath on that—" _fucking filthy piece of shit bastard _"—man."

And Natasha said he couldn't be tactful. Ha.

The moment of silence that followed after that almost gave Tony the false hope that Steve had crept out to do as he had said. But that was dashed when he heard the clipped noise of army boots stepping closer, no doubt cutting off his only exit from the bar.

Steve had used the damn alcohol has bait. That clever asshole. It just pointed to the levels of sad this conversation had sunk to.

"This isn't just you disagreeing with his politics," Steve finally said slowly. "Or even you being your normal, damn stubborn self."

Tony forced out a laugh at the descriptors, remembering to have enough class to drop a few rocks into his glass. No need to look too desperate. Chugging lost it's cool after twenty five.

"You know him," Steve finally said, digging an ice pick into Tony's gut with his cool tone.

"He's a fucking Senator from Oregon, how the hell would I know him? I don't even know where the fuck Oregon is," Tony griped, refusing to turn around and face the man. Not that it did much good, they could both see each other's reflections in the glass windows right in front of him. He could make out Steve's pinched eyebrows from here, his own unnaturally pale face. Damn pigment, giving him away.

"What does a man have to do for you to hate him _so _much that you would let him die in cold blood?" Steve asked, unforgiving in tone. To the soldier there probably was no excuse, because Steve was Mr. _fucking _Perfect. And maybe Tony's angry, bitter thoughts were being a bit harsh, because Steve was the kind of man that would always do the right thing, even if it ate him up inside. It didn't change the fact Tony Stark wasn't Captain America, and he _wouldn't _even attempt to do what Steve wanted him to do.

So he refused to rise to the bait, ignoring the tension in his shoulders that the question brought. "I told you, Rogers, do whatever the hell you want. Just leave me out of it," Tony grated out.

There were a few more moments of avoiding eye contact through their reflections before Steve's face hardened even more.

"This isn't over, Tony," he said sternly. The soldier turned and left without looking back. Tony didn't bother to look behind him, outwardly passive as he sipped his expensive as hell glass of what was now brandy.

It was only when JARVIS called out to inform him that Captain Rogers had taken the jet on a programmed route - along with Dr. Banner and the Black Widow, because the team wasn't about to let Cap wander of into God knows where all on his own - to the AIM hideout they'd uncovered in the Appalachian Mountain Range that Tony allowed for anything more. He turned around, throwing his glass as hard as he could into the far wall. It shattered magnificently, but it took two bottles that followed it before Tony was satisfied, his breath coming out in heaves.

"Fuck_."_

* * *

**AN: Not really sure what this is, or where it came from in my mind. But it's angsty. With a bit of sharp language, because Tony Stark gets a little mouthy when he's on the defensive, who knew? So, yeah. Thought I'd share. And as I mentioned in the warning, this turns into some pretty heavy stuff in the next chapter. **

**The next chapter will be up tomorrow, because I planned ahead for once and already have it sitting in the Doc Manager. Just have to push that button.**

**For those of you who know me, yeah. . . sorry about the whole falling off the face of the Earth thing. There are lots of reasons, the biggest being that I was abroad for seven months doing some soul searching, and my laptop practically broke in half a few weeks in. ****I'll be uploading the new chapters to some of my other work in the near future, as soon as I dig them up off of my old hard drive (if that's possible), or find that one damn flash drive I had the insight to put everything onto once. On a positive note, I was interested enough in Outlet that I've rewritten a lot of what I already had (which is so so so tedious, I would never ever recommend it), so you can except a new chapter of that to be up pretty soon.**

**Thanks for reading,**

**StrictlySomething**


	2. Chapter 2

**Warnings:** **Language, and lots of it, from the mouth of Tony Stark. Also uncomfortable, fairly explicit subject material in some chapters, like this one.**

**Enjoy the chapter.**

**Chapter Two**

Six days later found Tony holed up in his workshop, where he might've decided to camp out in, and never leave after what he'd deemed the Fight that Ended Tony and Steve's Budding Friendship.

He didn't know how Steve's mission went, not that he particularly wanted to. The Captain hadn't talked to Tony since the FtETaSBF let alone given him a debriefing on the subject- though he knew that moment was coming up any second now, any second. Cap wasn't the kind of person to just let a thing go. Tony sure as hell wasn't about to ask JARVIS, or Bruce in the meantime however.

Bruce had been the only one he had talked to (outside of Pepper on the phone) since. The kind soul had brought food down to him ever since the third day, informing him that yes, everyone was still alive and relatively well. And well, how could Tony lock that guy out? They were _science bros_. There was a code for that.

His eyes burned with the lack of sleep that always accompanied particularly rigorous projects, like the one he was currently working on; self-regulating guard drones for the new SHIELD prison of villains. They needed those now, go figure. Prisons for _Eeeevil. _Fury was even talking to him about designs for a _super _villain prison. Because real life was officially insane and they had super villains popping up out of thin air. Who would've called the 21st century being this batshit?

Tony reached to the right without lifting his eyes to search for his coffee mug, only to find it wasn't there. Refusing to take his eyes of the panel he was currently configuring he willed his arm to blindly reach out further.

"You went to school together."

His hand jerked at the sudden noise, smacking into the mug at the edge of the bench, and he did not scream like a teenage girl. It was a manly yell.

"_Jesus fucking Christ,_" he bit out sharply as he jumped up in synchrony with the falling, and now devastatingly broken mug that Rhodey had bought him two Christmas' ago. The one with the awesome silhouetted, stylized Stark 'stache and goatee printed on it. Tony turned sharply to see Steve standing a few feet away, arms crossed. He dropped his own hand from where it had been clenching his chest, not in fright – because Tony Stark didn't _frighten_.

"Steve," Tony breathed, running a hand through his hair, the dreadful anticipation exploding in his stomach at seeing the daunting figure, "You scared the shit out of me."

Okay. So maybe he frightened a little.

"I looked it up, Tony," Steve continued seriously.

Tony blinked rapidly, the cogs in his brain turning too slowly for the moment. He needed to cut down on the 56 hour days. "What?" he shook his head, stilling minutely when he replayed Steve's words in his mind. Oh. _That. _"I, uh," he looked around, "Look Steve, pretty busy right now. Fury's got my nose to the grinder if you kn—"

"MIT, 1987," Steve cut through all his chatter.

"Whoa, okay, I'll play," Tony said lightly, even as his emotions surged into dangerous freak-out territory. Steve was supposed to corner him about not joining the team for the last minute rescue, he wasn't supposed to get into the fucking details.

He dropped to his feet to pick up the shards of his mug so that his hands would stay busy. This was already so much worse than what his mind had thought up, "1987. That's what, my sophomore year?"

"Freshman," Steve corrected, unmoving.

Tony laughed a little tensely, "Freshmen year, whew, that's pulling from memory lane. _Fuck._"

The last was for his hand as his fist clenched around several shards of mug. Okay, messing with sharp objects while having a minor, internal panic attack was never the best idea. He felt a warm liquid begin to spread in his hand. Tony picked up the rest of the larger pieces, ignoring it for the moment as he stood up, making his way to the trash can.

He started speaking again slowly, not really looking forward to asking. "Any reason you're telling me the dates to my college years? Cause it was a long time ago, can't even remember most of it. And fun as it is, I've never been one for digging up the past. Really, digging into the past is like jumping off a cliff for me, I'd rather not do it," he added pointedly, begging and pleading Steve to just drop it, to just leave this one alone. He dropped the ceramic pieces of mug into his industrial garbage. Blood dripped heavily from his fingers, and he ground his teeth at the sight.

"I decided to look it all up myself, since you weren't so keen on sharing," Steve answered, not getting the cue at all. They needed to work on social cue-ing, because man, it was the 21st century, you couldn't get by without social cue-ing.

Dum-E bumped into his leg with a high pitched whir, and Tony looked down to see the tiny one armed robot carried a clean white rag. He patted the robot on the head, all in favor of ignoring the moment with Steve as he took the cloth and wrapped it around his fingers tightly, "I'm going to have to take a look at your programming, fella. It concerns me that you'd be so helpful."

"You had two classes with him, Tony. Robert Broughton, he was a senior at the time."

Tony froze, and immediately cursed his obvious tell. He made a vague sound of acknowledgement to cover it up, "Huh. Well it's a pretty big school, so no surprise there. Can't say I remember him. Those classes had more than a few people in them."

"_Hey," a voice called out from his left. Anthony jumped in his seat slightly when he realized it was directed at him. He looked up to see a college kid smiling down at him in curiosity, "You're Tony Stark, right?"_

_He was built like the jocks Anthony had seen all around campus, well-defined face, blue eyes, and blonde hair that undoubtedly kept women in lines at his doorstep. Anthony swallowed nervously, "Uh, yeah. I'm Anthony," he confirmed, secretly hoping the guy wasn't about to ask what it was like to grow up as the son of Howard Stark. Because that was what he'd been getting for the past week, and not much else. It was seriously starting to grate on his nerves._

_The man's mouth turned upwards in an amused smirk, "Anthony, huh?" he asked in a somewhat mocking tone. "Right," he continued, dropping a hand down on Anthony's shoulder and sliding down in the seat beside him, leaning in as if to tell a secret, "Listen, kid. This is college. That Anthony shit won't fly if you want to fit in. And I'm guessing you're having enough trouble with that as it is." _

"_What gave it away?" he asked sarcastically, his pen gripped tightly in his hand._

_The college guy grinned as he leaned back, "Probably the fact that you look like you haven't gone through puberty yet. And I might've seen your face in a few magazines."_

_Anthony shrugged, trying not to look as uncomfortable as he felt, "Comes with the territory of being a child prodigy. Not much I can do about it."_

"_Yeah, well, how bout I help you out?"_

_Anthony looked at him skeptically and the man gave a smug grin as he continued. "This is my fourth year now, I happen to have a pretty good insight on goings-on that happen around this place, and better yet, I can get you hooked up with the right sort of people. You'll be chill in no time."_

_The skepticism increased, doubtful that a college kid would be willing to let a fourteen year old tail him around,"What's in it for you?"_

_He snorted, "You kidding? You're a Stark, and that's a name that never hurts to have around." Anthony rolled his eyes at that one, "Plus, pretty sure I heard it on the grape vine that you're good at Integrated Calculus," the guy gestured around at the classroom they were sitting in, "and I sorta need an A to buff up my GPA. So what do you say? You tutor me every now and then, hang out with my peeps, and you get some nice social credit to go on that genius pedigree of yours."_

_Anthony tossed the idea around in his head for a little bit, it didn't sound so bad even though the guy had sprung it on him pretty quickly. And he was never one to back out of an opportunity. So he let himself smile uncertainly, "That sounds cool. Uh,thanks." _

"_No prob," the guy continued, throwing down a tattered spiral on his desktop before sticking out a hand, "I'm Rob, Rob Broughton."_

"Tony," Steve cut across his nonsense, and Tony glanced over to see him pulling out a folder. From where, he didn't ask. "There are pictures of you two standing side by side in clubs, rallies, even a few class projects throughout the entire year."

Tony's throat dried out immediately, but he went for a scoff anyway, "You're telling me you found a bunch of photos of me and Rob Broughton from 1987?"

Steve raised an eyebrow, "There's this thing, called the internet, don't know if you've heard of it. Well, it has photos, and newspaper archives. Looks like you made the school news a lot."

He threw the folder down on the table in between them.

"Yeah, well. Tony Stark. I was a pretty big deal," he said vaguely as he stepped closer, casually flipping the folder open. Photo copies of old news paper prints were stacked on top of each other.

His eyes narrowed. Steve couldn't work the toaster on a good day, let alone dig through the internet enough to find MIT's class listings and newspaper archives, and print them out. Meaning some good hearted Samaritan must've felt the need to help him out with his homework. _Natasha._

A hardly recognizable, scrawny version of himself stared up from the first copy. He had an awkward still-haven't-really-learned-how-to-smile-yet grin on his face, two books grasped tightly in his hands. Several older students surrounded him, all beaming happily into the camera. One in particular, a blond haired guy with broad shoulders sat next to him, one arm draped over Tony's shoulders, the other holding up a trophy that read First Place Computer Applications.

He dry swallowed, raising his eyes to squint accusingly at Steve, "You know how creepy, not to mention _invasive_, it is to go sneaking around a person's childhood? This breaks a few rules of social etiquette, Steve. It borders on restraining order territory."

"Why do you hate him so much?" Steve questioned, face still set into a firm frown, "What'd he do that would have you wish him dead thirty years later? Because going through all those, you two look like pretty good friends. I'd say he looked out for you even."

Tony's shallow layer of good mood fell away, "Why does it even matter?" He closed the folder with a snap, taking a few steps back to widen the space between him and the super soldier.

Steve took a step forward, not alone even that small concession, "Because this isn't you, Tony. And it doesn't make any sense."

"It doesn't have to, Steve," Tony snapped, his tether on controlling this conversation very, _very _brittle. "Sometimes things don't make any fucking sense, and you just have to learn to live with it."

"He's in the hospital, Tony," Steve bit out, "In critical condition. He might not ever walk again because we didn't get there fast enou—"

"Enough!" Tony yelled, slamming both of his hands down onto the table with a loud clang. "I don't want to hear it. I already told you I don't want to talk about it, I don't want to help him, so get off your fucking high horse, and stop talking about things you don't even understand," he growled, fists clenching.

"Then make me understand," Steve ordered, eyes intent. And really, Tony had practically asked for the clichéd return. He blamed the fact that emotions were such a fickle bitch for his thunderous reaction, a sudden surge of adrenaline rushing through his veins. Or maybe this was more than that, a need to get all the cooped up feeling he'd felt for the past few days off his chest. Hell, Steve was even asking for it.

"You want to know?" Tony asked coldly, stepping around the table to get up in the super-soldier's face. "You really want to know what makes Tony Stark tick?" He breathed it out nastily, stopping only a few feet away from Steve. This close and he could see a number of worry lines etched into the man's forehead, just how blue the man's eyes really were. "Fine. I tell you, but after this, we're _done_." He crossed his arms for emphasis, giving no ground. "You get out of here and leave me the fuck alone."

A flash of anger, maybe even hurt, crossed Steve's face, but otherwise he remained unmoved, worry lines unchanged. He had obviously weighed out the consequences of what this would bring, and curiosity had own out over maintaining any semblance of a good relationship with the billionaire before him, "Fine."

And that was that, Tony thought, his own face hardening. He refused to think about how this was going to ruin everything. How everything he'd built up in the past few months, everything he'd worked to put together again in the twenty long years since college were about to come crashing down around him. All because Steve Rogers couldn't leave things the fuck alone, and Tony Stark didn't know when to slow down.

"He fucked me," he finally gritted out, pulling off the band aid in a sharp, quick sentence. He'd never been one to soften his words, not once you got him to this fucking place. There wasn't any more walking around the issue, making light of it. "Several times."

Steve stilled completely, his hands dropping from his chest and his face changing almost imperceptibly. Tony's gut twinged as the words seemed to echo around the room, free after what felt like a lifetime of hiding in the far recesses of Tony's mind.

"He fucked me," he said again, more firmly, making sure it got through Steve's thick skull, making sure it got through his own, "And I didn't want him to."

The silence was worse than the yelling match this had been just minutes ago, and Tony couldn't stand it, didn't want to sink into that destroying void that silence created, made up of forgotten memories and bitter thoughts. He breathed in shakily.

"I still remember how much it hurt," Tony grated out, "how humiliated and ashamed I felt every time he touched me," he continued, clearing his throat forcefully, fingers clenching and unclenching as Steve stared and stared and stared, "and how that never seemed to stop him. How he never seemed to care. So, yeah, you'll forgive me if I don't exactly like the guy."

It was hard reconciling the near-relief he felt with finally letting it out in the open to the enormous amount of self-loathing and shame that had been interwoven into this for years. He bit his tongue, and swallowing the pit in his throat rather than face it head on.

Taking a deep, almost meditative breath, he turned his back away, not liking what was happening on Steve's face, "So, now you know. We done here?"

He didn't hear Steve move. Finally, the soldier spoke. "Tony. . ." his voice was softer, and Tony hated it, absolutely hated it.

Feeling his cartwheel of emotions spin aggressively out of control once more, he turned back on the soldier, rage smoldering in his eyes, "What, Steve? What more do you want?" He snapped, throwing up his hands and knowing that more was probably the last thing Steve wanted right now. But some things had a way of building in your chest and exploding out whether you wanted them to or not. "Want me to open up, to just _unload_ on all those thoughts and feelings I've ignored for all these years because maybe I want to move on with my fucking life?"

Steve blinked, shaking his head despairingly with pain filled eyes, "This isn't healthy, Tony."

He bit out a grin, "Oh, so now you're concerned about my well-being? How fucking thoughtful of you." He shook his head, "No, you wanted to know what makes me _tick_, right? Well, congratufuckinglations, it's your lucky day."

He took another step closer. "I was fourteen, Steve. _Fourteen_. You wanna know how this shit feels to a fourteen year old? What it feels all like to have this go on for months and months? You're terrified. _I _was terrified. Terrified that people would find out, or worse, that Robert fucking Broughton would dump me like old trash after he was done." He laughed sharply at what a shitty little idiot he'd been. "Poor pathetic little Anthony Stark letting a bastard use him over and over again because the guy was one of his only friends, and without Rob, he would go back to being the little shit who hid in his father's shadow."

A pin could've dropped in the turbulent silence.

"Or maybe you want to know the grisly details," Tony continued, a nasty sneer growing on his face, his stomach churning and head pounding, his brain yelling at himself to stop,_ just stop_. Just keep one thing tucked safely away where no one could ever find it, where he didn't have to worry about people knowing.

"Like the way he would run his hand through my hair as he slid my pants off, worked his mouth near my ear to whisper a stream of steady encouragements. The biting hold his arms took when he told me to stop _fucking _crying and be a fucking man, not a pussy." He dragged it out, heart hammering in his chest, and for God's sake why couldn't he _stop_? He was out of control, his heart pounding, terrified of what was happening. He felt like he was fourteen again, and he hated it. "How he would always warm me up first, a finger, then two, because he was such a _nice guy _and he didn't want to hurt me. And when he finally pushed himself into me, he would just stop," Tony's voice cracked, and Steve stepped forward with his arm out, his stone facade having crumbled mid-way through, and he pleaded, "Tony, please—"

He took a step back, jerking his head in a sharp denial. His anger had long since faded, only a heavy exhaustion remaining and the need to finish what he started. Tony Stark wasn't a quitter. "He'd just stop, and he'd lay there on top of me, savoring the feeling. His arm reaching around my body so he could make sure I was enjoying the experience too." Tony barked out a cold laugh, rubbing his face roughly with a hand, "He always did like to make sure I enjoyed myself, tried so hard to get me in the mood. He would move his body slowly at first, hands exploring, but he always lost it in the heat of the moment, let himself go, and it _hurt _so much that I started tuning it out, writing out code in my head, or planning my next project. When it was done and he cleaned us both up, I'd sit up, put my pants on, and sit there with his fucking arm around me like nothing had happened. Like we were just friends, like it wasn't a problem."

Tony finished heavily, pulling himself out of his memories, wondering when he'd fallen so deeply into them, and forcing himself to look at Steve, who looked back at him in wide-eyed wariness. "What, Rogers?" He asked tiredly, "Don't want to talk anymore?"

"You never told anyone?" Steve's question came out softly, finally.

Tony stared through him, humoring the question, "I got the courage to tell Howard eventually. Good ol' Dad was furious, but he didn't want the bad press that would come with that kind of case, so he ended up writing a check to keep Robert silent." He breathed in, rubbing the back of his injured hand slowly, "I got pulled from classes until he graduated magna cum laude, and he got off with a slap on the wrist and twenty thousand dollars."

Obie had known, the only friend Howard had bothered with his son's perverted problems. He'd been the one telling Tony that everything was going to be alright, even while Howard pulled the money out of the bank. And then there was Rhodey, who had to have some idea something was wrong with him. Tony'd met the guy shortly after the whole fiasco had died down, once he'd been allowed back for class, and it was pretty obvious that the mental scars hadn't just disappeared with Rob at the end of the school year. As for anybody else, Tony hadn't dared to whisper it to another soul. Shit like this never helped. Point made on the current fucking conversation.

"After that, I suppose we all lived happily ever after," Tony finished tightly, "Until Rob decided to stick his nose in some super villain business and get caught up with AIM, drawing your keen eye."

Steve was floundering where he stood, obviously trying to come up with something to pick up the broken pieces, to somehow fix this mess. But Tony had finally calmed down enough to begin gathering up some of sense that he'd thrown out earlier in the conversation.

It was pretty easy for him to realize that moments following revelations like this one would always be a bad idea. He drew the line before the soldier even had a chance, keeping his face an emotional neutral, "You need to leave."

Steve opened his mouth, but Tony shook his head sharply, his tone getting flatter, "I refuse to have whatever touchy-feely sob fest it is that you'll want us both to suffer through. You wanted to know, I told you. But I didn't sign up for a therapy session. So you can just keep that shit to yourself and get out here."

Steve stood there for a few more seconds of awkward puppy-dog-eyed silence before let out a heavy sigh, turning towards the door. He paused at the doorway, and Tony felt his body stiffen in preparation for a blow.

"I'm sorry, Tony. I really am."

"I don't want your apologies, Steve," Tony said, his voice hard, "Or your fucking pity. Pity's for people who Humpty-Dumptyied off the fucking wall. That's not me. I'm not _broken_."

I'm doing just fine. _I'm_ _doing_ _just_ _fine_.

How many times would he have to tell himself that before that actually kicked in?

"Of course not," Steve said firmly, and Tony hated him a little more for it. "I never said you were."

And then he was gone. The relief Tony felt was a bitter pill.

He cleared his throat after staring idly into space for more than a few seconds, packing up the turbulent thoughts and memories that came with his confession back up into the mental lockbox from whence they came. He didn't know what was going on in the raging whirlpool of emotions he felt there, but he wasn't particularly inclined to figure out. He'd gotten good old repression down to an art form for a reason; he didn't pick. "JARVIS, put the workshop on lockdown, I don't want to be disturbed. I've got work to do."

"Understood, sir."

"And erase video and audio footage of the last hour from the memory banks," Tony added as an afterthought.

"Already done, sir. Shall I play the new Black Sabbath album for you while you work?" Jarvis intoned politely.

Tony picked up a screwdriver, tossing it up and down lightly in his hand that wasn't bleeding as he looked around the lab, "Max volume. And don't even think about sneaking Pepper or Bruce passed lockdown protocol, I've got my eye on your programming," he threatened flatly.

"I wouldn't think of it, sir," JARVIS replied innocently.

* * *

**AN: The second chapter as promised. Some of the explicit material as warned. I think, because of its seriousness it's necessary to say a few words about its inclusion. Sexual assault, and non-consensual underage sex isn't something that should be taken solely for its entertainment value, or used to fluff up a character's background senselessly. It's not something that I mean to mock, or throw in as an overt shock factor to get an audience. But it's something I think shouldn't be ignored, or walked around. It happens every day, a lot of people are affected by it, and the effects it has on both victim and assailant become an intrinsic part of their future selves. As fiction is often a reflection of real life, I think it plays an important role in creative writing. ****So yeah.**

**Seriousness aside, any feedback you fantastic readers feel like giving me is always appreciated, and taken to heart. And I want to give a shout out to all the amazing people that responded so nicely to the first chapter. Every review, alert, and update was cherished, and will be placed on the nonexistent mantle of AWESOME above my nonexistent fireplace. They are, and continue to be my primary source of imaginary power, so again, thank you.**

**Chapter Three will be a little later in coming out. I have the bare bones, but I'd rather put some meat on the sucker before I parade it around for the world to see. I'm guessing next week sometime? I do have three papers coming up in the next two weeks for school, but small scale academic writing usually has me thirsting for fun stuff, so I wouldn't feel **_**too **_**concerned.**

**Thanks for reading,**

**StrictlySomething**


	3. Chapter 3

**Warnings: See previous chapters.**

**Chapter Three**

He didn't know how much time had passed before he was coming to on the concrete floor of his lab, JARVIS' voice in his ear, "Sir, Dr. Banner has been standing outside the door for over forty-five minutes now. He has asked me to communicate his frustration to you over the fact that the codes you entrusted him with are not working."

Tony responded gracefully with a groan.

"I think most of his alarm is coming from the fact that he can make out your unmoving feet on the lab floor from the doorway. Despite my reassurances that you are alive, I detect high levels of concern for you wellbeing." The AI's voice sounded almost chiding.

Tony rolled himself onto his back, dropping the screwdriver that had been glued to his hand. "What day is it?"

"Monday, 1:33 in the afternoon," JARVIS informed him. "In the forty-seven hours that you have refused phone calls you have received seven messages from Ms. Potts. I believe you missed a rather important meeting that was taking place in Philadelphia this morning."

He grimaced, forcing himself to sit up. That was going to put himself on Pepper's shit list for a good long while. He dragged his hand over his face, disgust forming at the bristle that covered his face outside of the trimmed goatee, "Ugh, JARVIS, on a scale of ten how bad do I look?"

"A frightening seven, sir." JARVIS gave his answer honestly. "I would say six, except I detect that you are beginning to pick up quite the unpleasant aroma."

Tony sniffed and wrinkled his nose, unpleasant might be an understatement. His eyes scoured over his lab, brightening when he saw the metal form shining on the charging platform. Well would you look at that. "Hey! I finished the drone prototype," he allowed himself an accomplished grin.

"Indeed sir. And I believe you have finally cracked the code on the synthetic material on the pants needed to allow Dr. Banner to transform without fully revealing himself."

"Hell yeah," Tony said victoriously, pushing himself to his feet. Science blackouts were a scary thing, but rarely were they without awesome results. He impressed even himself sometimes.

"Sir, how would you like me to handle Dr. Banner?" JARVIS reminded him.

Tony hesitated, restraining the urge to look over at the weary figure standing behind the glass doors to his left.

"He bears several items of food," JARVIS nudged, "And I should remind you that it has been well over two days since you have had a substantial meal."

His stomach growled in response. Tony sighed, "Fine, fine," he said, making his way to the back of the lab where he'd smartly put in a bathroom. "Let him know I'm jumping in the shower, he can drop off the food on one of the tables."

"Of course, sir."

He came back out ten minutes later rubbing a towel through his hair to see that Bruce had made himself at home in front of the terminal Tony had fondly deemed the Jolly Green Giant Pants Problem-solving Station. More importantly, he spotted several boxes of Chinese takeout laying spread out on the table behind the kind doctor.

Tony worked his way to them, groaning in satisfaction at the orange chicken that greeted him from the first box. He grabbed the fork, bypassing the chopsticks because he was far too hungry for anything other than shoveling the mess down. Before he got lost in the tangy heaven, he tossed out, "What do ya make of them?" Honestly, he couldn't even remember the compounds he'd decided to blend together in the end, that long into the no sleeping contest and things got pretty fuzzy.

Bruce straightened from the computer, pushing his glasses back to the top of his nose as he hummed in approval, "Nice. I never even considered what polyheptadol would add to the fabric's structure. Looks like it quadrupled the strength of the bonds already in place, but the current flexibility remains."

Tony let out his own hum in agreement, leaning back into the chair he'd fallen into as he tried to control the oversized bite of food he'd put into his mouth at once. Bruce turned to him, walking up to the table and grabbing one of the smaller boxes Tony knew to be chow mein, before sitting down in a wheeled chair himself.

The man that could turn into a raging green monster on a whim cleared his throat awkwardly as he opened the box, "So," he said pointedly as he deftly grabbed a good portion of the noodles with his chopsticks, "You've been down here a while."

Tony finally managed to swallow, taking a swig from the bottled green tea Bruce had brought down with the food, "You know how it goes. Projects start stacking up, Fury gives you the Eye of Death glare a few times, and you decide it's better to just burn through it all before you end up in some Slovak prison with nothing more to your name than the bar of soap they gave to you at the door."

"It's been over a week," Bruce pointed out dryly, "Do you even remember what natural sunlight looks like?"

Tony scoffed, leaning forward to find the rice, "Sunlight's for the weak."

"For the living, you mean," Bruce continued, chewing slowly. "Pepper gave me a call this morning," He added, and Tony had a sinking feeling at that news. "She tells me you missed a meeting that you've both been looking forward to for months. Something about expanding your energy infrastructure to Philly? She sounded pretty upset."

She would be, it had taken a countless number of forms, and phone calls, and favors begged to set up a meeting with the city commissioners, several of the wealthier business men, and the mayor himself. Switching to a new, practically unknown form of alternative energy, even on the small scale of a few buildings was a pretty big deal to a city. And that was with the Stark name going for him. He cleared his throat, "Was that today?" he asked, going for nonchalance, "I'm sure we'll be able to reschedule. And sorry about Pepper, I'll let her know not to bother you with stuff like that."

Bruce rested his hand, balancing his chopsticks over the carton, "I don't mind Pepper calling me, Tony. She needs someone to talk to," he said gently, his eyes scrutinizing. Tony made sure not to squirm under the gaze, trying not to let that statement hit him like a punch to the gut, "But maybe these are things you should talk about, you know, instead of burying down and isolating yourself in here for days at a time. That doesn't help, Tony. It never does."

Tony didn't pause in eating, mouth half full when he replied, "Things? What things?" He pointed his fork resolutely the fellow scientist, "I don't have _things_, Bruce. Just a little project-heavy right now."

"I suppose that's why JARVIS told me at the door that, while you are not dead, your functioning capabilities are estimated at 35% due to emotional distress?" Bruce asked lightly, wiping his mouth with a napkin.

Tony turned his glare on, looking to the ceiling, "JARVIS, what the hell? Whose side are you on?"

JARVIS answered innocently, "I merely provided Dr. Banner with what I calculated might best alleviate some of his concerns. The information was acceptable within my current parameters. I was not been made aware that the situation warranted 'sides.'"

Tony huffed, feeling cheated and not at all liking the trapped feeling he was beginning to feel again. He turned back to Bruce, cracking a smile, "Yeah, well, despite the inaccurate assessment made by that shoddy piece of programming, I'm fine okay. I fixed your pants, didn't I? So don't worry about it."

He could almost feel the affronted air of the AI at being referred to as shoddy. Great, now he was on JARVIS' shit list too. That made three people –Steve, Pepper, Jarvis— he cared about so far, maybe he should aim for setting a record.

"It's hard not to worry when you're looking like a small town hobo, Tony," Bruce countered, his calm tinged with a hint of concern.

Tony's face twitched, "Low blow, Brucie. Maybe I'm going for the full beard look?"

"Don't," the other advised.

Tony laughed at that, hand scratching the rough terrain on his chin. "I sorta want to now. Might be worth it."

Bruce's eyes narrowed in on his hand, wrapped lightly in the gauze Tony had hurriedly wrapped around it.

"Got a little excited around a broken mug," Tony explained, dropping the hand down again.

"Please tell me you at least sterilized it properly," Bruce asked tiredly, like he already knew the answer.

"You're nitpicking now, Bruce," Tony waved a hand dismissively, then aimed to reassure the man as he set his own food down and stood. "It's just a scratch. No, really, Bruce, _c'mon,_ you don't need to, _gah_," he rolled his eyes as the doctor snatched his hand, beginning to unwrap the gauze carefully. "Seriously, you're more of a worrywart than Pepper and JARVIS combined. And that's saying something," Tony said pointedly.

Bruce sighed as he examined Tony's hand, "This isn't just a scratch, Tony. If I didn't know any better I'd say you wrapped your hand around several glass fragments and squeezed."

Not entirely inaccurate. Tony admitted it was his smartest moment.

"Some of these could use stitches," Bruce continued, his voice a little tighter. "And you should probably know that contrary to popular belief, grease, metal shavings, and dirty shower water are not conducive to healing."

"Yeah, well. I'm sure if I looked hard enough I'd be able to bribe a doctor to disagree with that assessment," Tony continued lightly, eyes travelling the lab once more as the doctor looked at the hand from all angles.

Bruce dropped his hand finally, pinching his nose with a sigh. "You can't treat your hands like this, Tony, it's dangerous. Do you know how easy it is to lose hand function? You could wake up one day and find out your nerves are deadened, your response time cut down, and your range of mobility dropped to finger twitching and a loose grip. You want that?"

"Geez, Bruce. Your bedside manner needs some work," Tony said, eyeing the doctor uneasily at the sudden weight he'd forced into the conversation. "Cut out on the doom and gloom, would you? I think I would know if my hand was about to fall off." Okay, so he wasn't the most observant, Tony admitted under Bruce's stare. He added in a weaker tone, "At least, JARVIS would probably tell me."

"You need to take your health more seriously," Bruce underlined heavily, not even blinking at Tony's tendencies to skirt around the edges of everything in this conversation. He stood up, staring hard at Tony, "Don't move, I'm going to grab my kit."

"Don't have to tell me twice," Tony grumbled, pouting even as he grabbed another carton of cheap stir fry. Ooh, beef and broccoli. Score.

And then Hawkeye dropped from the ceiling. Tony jumped up, and beef and broccoli flew everywhere, which was _such _a waste, he couldn't even begin to think about how delicious it would've been, "Holy shit-faced _fuck,_ Barton. What the hell is your _problem_?"

The archer smirked, not even a little ashamed. Because he had no _soul, _Tony thought bitterly, "Just thought I'd drop in. Hadn't seen you in a while. Thought maybe Cap had killed you and hid the body."

"Liar," Tony called out, "You sneak around in the ventilation like a squirrel on psychosomatic drugs. You can't tell me you don't spy on me at least once a day. I won't believe it."

"Like you don't watch us with those cameras situated all around the tower," Clint rebutted with a shrug, looking around the lab curiously, "Fair game, as far as I'm concerned."

"I told you, that's for JARVIS' _visual_ _input_. It's a direct feed into the AI's server, not my own personal creep show," Tony grumbled, settling back down in his chair.

Clint's face lit up, "Is that Chinese?" Unimpressive, because Tony knew he knew full well it was Chinese.

"MY Chinese," Tony corrected, only to watch Clint snatch a carton in blatant disregard, settling into it with happy munching.

He rolled his eyes, "Seriously, this is my lab, Clint. You come into my lab, eat my food. . . Is nothing sacred anymore?"

Clint shrugged, taking a cross-legged seat on one of the higher tables behind him, "Eh, thought I'd keep you company while Bruce was away."

Tony's eyes narrowed suspiciously, because Clint didn't just keep someone company unless there was an X Box 360 involved, "What is this, some kind of intervention? No more inventing, or some shit?"

Clint shrugged again, holding up a suspiciously shaped piece of chicken with his fork and eyeing it warily, "Call it what you want, Stark. But Bruce is far too passive to handle a mess like you on his own, not that I can blame him when he has the pretty good chance of exploding into a giant rage monster at the wrong moment. Point is, you'll be down here for at least another month if we leave this to him and his non-aggressive way of handling things."

His eye twitched, "This is my lab, Clint. I think I can be down here as long as I want. Besides, what are you going to do? Hog-tie me and drag me out of here?"

Clint popped the chicken into his mouth, chewing as he gave Tony a _look_, "If I have to."

Damn super spies, Tony was 90% sure Clint was dead serious. Which sucked.

"Fine," he huffed, crossing his hands, "What do you want?"

"What do _you _want, Stark?" Clint countered, pointing at him with a fork that had another piece of breaded chicken dangling from its grasp, "Do you really want to sit down here and spend your time moping around because life sucks and Cap has the same capacity to understand morally grey issues as a small field mouse? You really want to be left all alone to sit here and stew in your own shit because you're such a stubborn bastard? Or, do you want to get up and be a part of a team? A team that works together, trusts one another, has each other's back no matter what. A team," Clint dragged out, making sure the hint hit him square in the face, "that can work out its disagreements in a timely fashion and go out on any given Tuesday and save the fucking world because we're awesome and that's what we do? Because I'll tell you right now," he said, stabbing his fork back into the carton with a dead seriousness, "You're pretty shitty if you think you can have both. Life doesn't work like that."

Tony felt like that was unfair. Clint had spent his fair share of time moping around at the beginning of this Avenger's team thing– more than one god damned week that's for sure. It wasn't until Coulson came back from the dead that the archer had popped back up into the snarky, bitchy asshole that he was today. Maybe he had a little more reason for it, being possessed by an angry, adolescent god and all, but really. Kettle, meet pot. And what was that about Steve and field mice? He considered, blinking. .

"I know which one I chose," Clint said after a moment to let it sink in, "And surprisingly, I don't regret it at all."

Tony stewed, Clint ate. He put down the carton after another moment, brushing his hands off as he stood up on the desk, "Welp. I'd say my job here is done. Looks like you have a choice to make, Stark." He turned slightly, eyeing the billionaire with another smirk, "And know that if you make the wrong one, I'll hogtie you and drag your ass out of here myself." He jumped up, hands catching on the opening in the ceiling, and heaving himself of quickly. "Remember, I'll be watching," his voice echoed metallically through the lab as a ventilation grate slid back into place.

Tony eyed it narrowly, "Fucking creep," he muttered. He was tempted to call a priest to get this place exorcised when this was all over. Or pest control.

Bruce came back in to see Tony stewing in the pile of beef and broccoli, and was smart enough not to ask. He didn't even vengefully poke harder than he could have at Tony's injured hand when he cleaned it up, for which the billionaire would be eternally grateful.

"So," Bruce began again, as serious as he always was, "I don't suppose you want to talk about it?"

Tony scowled, hand spasming when the doctor dabbed at it again with a cotton swab, "That quota's already been filled for the week, Doc. Thanks though."

Bruce sighed, "I'm guessing you're talking about Steve?"

He bristled, "Why? The Cap been spilling his guts over coffee again?"

"No," and for once the doctor sounded brittle, "he left two days ago, we haven't seen him since. I think he's out in his Brooklyn apartment."

Tony stilled, going for nonchalant once again, "Hm? Maybe he found himself a lady-friend, and their getting frisky—"

"Tony," Bruce cut him off wearily, pulling out a wrap from his bag, "Please don't."

He snapped his mouth shut.

"Whatever happened between you two, it's between you two," Bruce continued, wrapping Tony's hand gently. "But the team can't function like this. You two are what hold this whole mess together. We lose that," Bruce stopped for a moment, his grip tightening, "then I don't see this working for much longer."

It was only because they were such awesome science bros that Tony even felt his throat tighten up. Anyone else, Barton for example, would've been met with his normal scowly exterior because he didn't do touchy feely shit, or honesty for that matter.

"Look," he managed to piece together after a moment, "It's been a shitty week for me. A real shitty week. An sometimes it takes me a while to turn myself back on after crap happens. I'll," he rubbed his free hand through his hair, "I'll talk with Steve, or something. And stop rubbing metal shavings into my hand, whatever."

Bruce finished his work, and stood up. "That would give your hand a fighting chance. And I think Steve would appreciate an honest talk."

Tony's stomach curled in on itself again. Steve had probably had enough honesty for a lifetime, "Yeah."

Bruce pushed up his glasses, offering a gentle smile, "Steve's a good man, Tony, and he wants to be your friend. You can work this out."

Working it out was exactly what Tony was worried about. Tony made it a habit to bury issues like this under years and years of repression, he didn't want to work it out, and he definitely didn't want Steve to try and fix him, which is undoubtedly what the super-soldier would attempt the second they were within talking distance of each other.

Despite his inward turmoil, he let himself smile for the other scientist, clapping his hand down on Bruce's shoulder lightly, "I'm sure we can, Big Guy. I'm sure we can. Now, uh, not to jump ahead of myself here, but why don't we sneak a peek at that polyheptadol pants prototype right now instead?"

Distraction technique initiated. It was countered not so subtly a few minutes later by his own AI.

"Taking into consideration your discussion with Dr. Banner, I took the liberty of contacting Captain Rogers, sir." JARVIS' voice was perfectly stoic, "He agreed to a meeting for tonight at six o'clock."

God damn it. Looks like "_shoddy piece of programming_" had come back to bite him in the ass after all.

Bruce answered for him, smart enough to keep the amusement out of his voice, "Thank you, JARVIS."

To make it worse, what he would swear was chuckling drifted down from the ventilation shaft. And Tony was pretty sure another carton of stir fry had gone missing up the grate while both the scientists had their backs turned.

Tony kicked the trashed carton of beef and broccoli out of his way as he walked towards another computer with hunched shoulders, "It's a damned conspiracy."

And he wasn't about to let it get to him. He was Tony Stark, damn it. Holding himself together on nothing but coffee and hardened snark had been a personal copyright since the early nineties.

He'd march up to Steve, tell him that nothing had changed, they were fine, let's just all keep moving forward, whatever shit he needed to say to make sure everything had settled back down, and then maybe he could finally sweep this hell of week behind him.

* * *

**AN: A little more team interaction, some banter to lighten the moment before we delve back into the darker stuff.**

**On another note, polyheptadol and any other weird science things that are discussed anywhere in any of my work is completely made up. No idea what I'm doing when it comes to these levels of science, I don't even see the point of trying.**

**Thank you to all my reviewers, you guys are awesome! Past awesome, you got me to derp smile (it's a thing, I'm sure of it) more than once this week, which is a much appreciated and amazing feat during midterms. Comments on the latest addition are always welcome, advice sorely needed. **

**As for plans on the rest of this if anyone's interested: It's a relatively short fic, a few more chapters and I see it coming to a close. Again, while I'm currently writing at a pleasant speed, please never wait too earnestly on an update, I'm a bundle of unfulfilled commitments and my fingers get twitchy.**

**Thanks for reading, **

**StrictlySomething**


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